


What Isn't There

by ifoughtadingoandwon



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23306893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifoughtadingoandwon/pseuds/ifoughtadingoandwon
Summary: The maddened Plegian king had fallen but war already beckons from the west. Frederick has some difficulty packing, revisiting lost times.Ficlet, set at the end of the two year time skip.
Relationships: Emerina | Emmeryn/Frederick
Kudos: 14





	What Isn't There

He had packed and unpacked four times today. The fourth time should’ve been sufficient. But as he blocked a recruit’s eager lance, a thought struck him; those lace ribbons wouldn’t match the fur trimming on Lissa’s new winter coat. Now, for a fifth time, a manner of clothes, bottles, and other bits-and-bobs laid in obedient rows across his bed.

It would have been unforgivable if he had forgotten to pack soap and sachets. War was coming and Frederick intended to face it clean-shaven and sweet-smelling. A knight must set an example for his liege’s men, lest the fish smell of rot from the head down.

His medical kit already fit snugly at the bottom of his travelling case. It was no cleric’s staff, nor an apothecarist’s herbs, but the cracked leather spoke of its age. Scraped knees and bee stings. Lissa’s bloody nose when she had fallen out a tree. A cut on Chrom’s leg from his first brush with live metal. The small kit had tended to each and more.

It was customary for him to trim his hair every two weeks with the scissors his grandfather gifted him. In they went, alongside another pair, finer and more precise, for Chrom and Lissa. Once, Lissa had filched them out of his dresser. She hacked at her hair until what little remained sat high and jagged above her bony shoulders. With a steady hand, Frederick had tamed it into what Maribelle called a “daring bob”. It was no testament to his skill, but she meant it a balm to the princess’s tears.

Frederick’s straight razor followed soon after. Once, he had attempted to grow a beard--an effort to distract from a cracking voice and gangly limbs. Then one day, he looked into the mirror and saw his father stare back at him. He’d been barefaced since. Chrom had the same terror. When his chin had begun to sprout he asked Frederick to teach him how to shave.

In-between pressed underclothes, lay a slip of paper dog-eared, folded over and over again until the script had been lost to creases. Truly, he had never much need for it. Frederick had memorized his vows weeks before his knighting. Yet he read them by candlelight for countless nights after to drown away the dying gasps of men. That faded paper had become his talisman, imbued by all those murmured recitations. 

There wasn’t much else to pack once he padded the trunk with a few changes of clothes. As lovely as those ribbons were, tomorrow he would have to return them first thing. Not only would they clash with that coat, but only a fool would dare fight Maribelle over claim to Lissa’s golden head. So, his hand moved over to a vial, its topper shaped and painted into a tiny bouquet.

The bottle was empty. It had already been when, in a rare fit of wickedness, he had swiped it off her vanity the day of that bodiless funeral. The thought of everything of hers entombed below in the crypts had sickened him.

But if he held it near and closed his eyes, the scent of lilacs would creep back.

Frederick took a deep inhale. He could almost see it now, that patient smile and fair brow. The laugh she would make when her siblings came scampering down the hall, leaving muddy prints behind them. How she cupped his cheek and her eyes saw him not as a broken nor a pitiable boy.

Frederick looked down at the bottle again, uneased by that recollection. He remembered the warmth of her hands--how he laid his face into them, desperate for touch--and their tea had grown cold in the autumn breeze. But still, there was a violation of something ripped away from him, leaving a hole.

What color had those eyes been? 

After all those years of looking into that steady gaze, surely Frederick should know. It should have come easy to him as breathing. But memory could not save him from losing her again. It had only been two years since. Cold panic took him--He grasped the edge of his bed to sturdy himself. How soon until all he had left was a gauzy mosaic of her, vandalized by time and fragile recollection. 

The flacon sat small in his palm. A witless toss would leave it shattered all over the floor. But Frederick would not be free of it even after a good sweeping. Its remnants would glitter in the recesses of the floorboards. Shards would worm their way into his heel.

In quiet resignation, he slipped it into a velvet purse--a handmade gift from Gaius last winter solstice. No big deal, Gaius had called it then, but the embroidered vines that ran all around it spoke otherwise. It was safe, wedged between a doublet and down-lined gloves. 

Frederick snapped the trunk shut. Before he finished the second latch, something beckoned him to creak it open and peer in. Sprouting out of the luggage, the purse was a piece of forest, lush and green.

 _Green_.

Emmeryn’s eyes had been green.

**Author's Note:**

> A result of quarantine boredom leading to revisiting and salvaging years old drafts. This one was pretty much done, but I just never got around to finding a conclusion to it.
> 
> Wrote it in response to a prompt: "five things that are in your MCs medicine cabinet or toiletries setup and one thing that isn’t."


End file.
